February 18, 2013

Montréal - On February 11, 2013, the Honourable Pierre E. Labelle, Associate Coordinating Judge of the Court of Québec, district of Montréal (Criminal and Penal Division), imposed fines totalling $655,000 on Paul D'Andrea, one of the officers of Mount Real.

Following an investigation carried out by the Autorité des marchés financiers (the AMF), Paul D'Andréa offered to co-operate and pleaded guilty in September 2008 to 131 charges. More specifically, Paul D'Andrea pleaded guilty to 106 charges for misrepresentation and 25 charges for aiding various companies related to Mount Real Corporation with illegal distributions.

In September 2008, the AMF also initiated <link file:29118 file-link-simple>penal proceedings against four other officers in the matter of Mount Real: Lino P. Matteo, Joseph Pettinicchio, Laurence Henry and Andris Spura. The four officers are facing 547 charges. The trial of Lino P. Matteo is due to begin on March 12, 2013.

Other decisions in the matter of Mount Real
In January 2007, <link file:25576 file-link-simple>the AMF filed 619 charges against 24 individuals for acting as representatives in the matter of Mount Real and its subsidiaries. To date, 22 individuals (Victor Lacroix, Armando Ferruci, Christophe Balayer, Luigi Muro, Anthony Cappellano, Éric Couture, Laraine Lyttle, Yves Tardif, Guy Prescott, Carole Dorion, Sylvie St-Denis, Antonella Niro, Paul Quenneville, Jaime Lao Wan Lian, Francesco Iaconno, Fayza Rifai, René Proteau, Nick Mylonakis, Paul Messier Jr, William Marston, Marc-André Froment and Roberto Milzi) have been found guilty of a total of 544 charges and ordered to pay fines totalling $2,618,000.

The Autorité des marchés financiers (the AMF) is the regulatory and oversight body for Québec's financial sector.

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